THERE is just now in Edinburgh a character to whom the devourers of the "penny dreadful" and the
"ha'penny harrower" will hasten to transfer their allegiance when they learn that he has
accomplished more "deeds of dreadful note" than all the "Boys of England" heroes that the most
imaginative writer could produce. I had the distinction the other day of being presented to this
notable personage, and was at once dazzled by the magnificence of his attire, and profoundly
interested by his "walk and conversation." Colonel Shelley, as this gentleman is called, was
decked, when I met him, in the gallant trim of a captain in the Confederate army, and he
certainly looked very grand and picturesque. As I had never been a Confederate, there was no
occasion for the Colonel's indignation when I asked him if he was in the militia. He wore a lot
of brass door plates on his vest, which he called official badges, his head and shoulders (and
part of the neighbourhood) were covered by a monster hat, from beneath which his moustache
bristled with a fierceness becoming the attire; and his heels were armed with a pair of spurs
that gave one pains all over the body just to look at. Such were my first impressions of Colonel
Shelley, or, as he is more generally known, "Mexican Joe."
But I was soon to learn that the Texan Ranger and scout was accounted as modest as he was fierce.
He was born in America, and he has all the native modesty of the race. He recounts the story of
his life with such charming simplicity that his hearers soon lose reckoning of the number of
Indians he has scalped, and of the other daring feats he has accomplished, and they can do
nothing but gaze at him in wonder and amazement as he "trots out" another "blood curdler" in
response to the demand. In his youth he has evidently been a "broth of a boy," for he began his
career by running away from home. At the age of eighteen he joined the command of General
Johnston, and later on that of General Pope, under both of whom he had personal experience of
war. Afterwards, when the war was over, he travelled across the States of Alabama, Mississippi,
and Louisiana, into Texas, where he took to deer-hunting. Once into Texan territory his
adventures began, and right onwards from this point we have a thrilling story of scouting,
scalping Indians, following trails, hairbreadth escapes, &c. First of all he saved the life of an
old Mexican hunter who was in the grips of a grizzly. Soon after that he was organising a band of
rangers to put down the cattle thieves, outlaws, and desperadoes who infested the western portion
of Texas. For five years he was engaged fighting these gentry, with now and again a brush with
the Indians, and then he started a cattle ranche in the south-west, at the same time taking the
post of scout under General Ord, who then took command of the Rio Grande district. Then comes
more fighting and scalping and unpleasant encounters with Indians, succeeded by his resignation
and marriage with a Castillian lady, who brought him 25,000 dollars. He then settled down in the
northern part of the State of Chihuahua, where he began life as a rancher. But he was not long
allowed to enjoy his domestic bliss. The Apache Indians went out on the warpath in 1876, and in
the campaign against them he lent his services as a scout. He was captured by the Apaches, and
had to undergo no end of torture before he made his escape. The rangers ultimately crushed the
Indians. More fighting with Indians again kept him lively, and he returned home to find his wife
carried off by them. He started out in pursuit, and though he never again saw his wife alive, he
tells, with a sense of gratified revenge, how he brained the Indian chief who killed her.
After this record it seems rather strange that the hero of so many wild adventures in the wilds
of Texas should settle down to the unstirring life of a showman. But that, it seems, was
accidental. He has with him some of his cowboys from Texas, some eight or ten Indians, and over a
score of ponies. He lost some of his ponies by fire in Manchester, and there also the scalp of
the Indian chief who killed his wife was consumed.